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TFiJ36: Winter 2011-Yuki Oroshi
Hey everyone! Long time no message. Hope you all are well, wherever you are. As I type it’s nearly March, and the snow from this record-breaking winter is melting away fast. Before it all goes away, I’d like to put out a series of videos that chronicle some of our experiences during this favorite season of mine. What with all the snow, it’s been an amazing ride.
This clip features a fun chore that quickly got old after two days- shoveling snow off of our roof. In Japanese, this is called “yuki oroshi”. Yuki means “snow”, and “oroshi” is a verb that means “to fall”. Here in Toyama, and on the west coast of Japan in general, the snow comes down wet and heavy. A typical season has about three or four storms, which can dump anywhere from one to 100 centimeters of snow. In recent years we’ve seen less and less snow, and the melting cycles between each storm have grown in length. A couple of years ago we almost didn’t get any snow at all! Ski areas had to shut down in January, which is crazy. Anyway, all this is set up for this winter, one for the record books. It started snowing on Christmas Eve, and for the next month it basically didn’t let up! We’d have some days with out much snow, but the normal melting between storms didn’t happen, and as a result, snow built up and up until it reached crazy amounts. Naturally this caused some havoc, as travel was made difficult and roofs creaked under the immense weight of the wet snow.
When we built our house, we designed the roof so that snow would slide off easily. This was to prevent snow from accumulating and then potentially damaging our home. Problem was, we put the front door in the wrong place! Snow sliding off the roof would block the entrance and make getting in and out a pain. Finally, several years ago, we put these “snow stopper” rails on the roof. These blocked the snow from sliding off too quickly and saved a lot of work. Everything was cool until this year- with all the snow, too much accumulated, and we had to get up on the roof to shovel it off. This was a tremendous amount of work. It started off fun, as the video shows, but after two days it became old! After five consecutive days of shoveling, I was exhausted. Still, the experience was a memorable one, and I’d like to share it with you all here. In subsequent videos I’d also like to share some of the other fun stuff we did this winter. We really did have a good time. Until next time, take care!
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